SEO For Lawyers in 2022

In this digital age, most people find information about products and services through search engines such as Google or Bing. According to a study, 86% of the respondents rely on Google as their primary source for researching lawyers to hire. This means that it’s crucial to have a strong online presence if you want your law firm to stand out from the competition as well as being easily discoverable by potential clients.
This is where Search Engine Optimization or SEO can help to strengthen your law firm’s online presence, generate more traffic, and increase conversion.
seo for lawyers
seo for lawyers

What is SEO?

SEO is the on-going process where websites are optimized for the search engines through the use of different SEO techniques to enhance their positioning on the search results so that they can be easily discoverable by users.
To put it simply, the main goal of SEO is to help your law firm organically reach the first page of Google’s Search Results Page (SERP) or even better the top 3 positions of the first page of the search results to enhance the visibility of your listing, increase traffic to your website, and increase the likelihood of potential clients reaching out to you for more information about your services.

Benefits of SEO for Law Firms

SEO provides many benefits besides increasing your visibility in the search engines. Other SEO benefits include:
  • Outranking competitors who offer similar services as your own
  • Increase click-through-rate to your website.
  • Creating a better user experience
  • Saving costs on paid advertisements
  • Enhance the reputation and credibility of your law firm
  • Attracting new and high-quality leads
If you want to get your law firm to the top of the search results then having an effective SEO strategy is essential.
keyword research for lawyers
Knowing what search terms users are using to find law services you provide is important in identifying what keywords your law firm should target. Keep in mind that not all searches are identical.
There can be many different reasons why someone would search for something on Google. They could be looking for information, or they are looking for solutions to a problem. Whatever the reason, your keywords must reflect the search intent of your audience.
To effectively conduct keyword research, there are many professional tools out there to help discover how people are searching for the legal services which you provide, such as Ahrefs, Google Keyword Planner, SEM Rush, Moz, and Buzz Sumo. These tools usually offer limited features for free, and if you want access to more sophisticated features you will most likely have to pay.
The ideal keywords are those that are relevant, high-volume, and low-competition that people are using to find the services which you provide.

2) Website Optimization

website optimization for lawyers
Once you have identified the keywords for which you’ll be ranking, the next step would be optimizing your website so that it can be easily analyzed and indexed by Google’s algorithm.
When optimizing your website for the search engine, you must consider the Core Web Vitals which Google considers to be most important when evaluating a website’s overall user experience.
Three main measurements that make up the Core Web Vitals include:
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): This is the time it takes for a webpage to show its content once it has been clicked by the user. The faster it takes for your pages to load, the better the score you are likely to get. The ideal LCP you should be aiming for every page on your website is to be within 2.5 seconds.
First Input Delay (FID): How well can users interact with your page? In other words, FID measures how long it takes for users to get what they want to get done on your web page. This can include being able to effortlessly navigate the different pages on your website or being able to successfully enter an email to subscribe to a newsletter.
Cumulative layout shift (CLS): This measures how stable are the elements on your page as it loads up. If elements such as pictures, links, or text on your page are moving around as the page loads, this will result in a high CLS, which is bad. Ideally, you want your page elements to be stable while the page is loading up to prevent confusion about where the elements are located.
While Core Web Vitals are the main three factors for evaluating user experience, there are other factors that must not be ignored.
Other factors that Google considers when evaluating user experience include:
HTTPS: Is your webpage properly secured?
Mobile-friendliness: Is your web page optimized for different mobile devices?
Safe-browsing: Are there any threats such as malware on your page?
Limited Intrusive Interstitial ads: Are there a lot of pop-up ads on your page?
The goal for these measurement factors is to encourage businesses’ to constantly improve their websites so that they can deliver a positive experience to users when they visit.

3) Local SEO

local seo for lawyers
If you are a small law firm that only provides services to a specific area, then local SEO will be more effective in driving qualified leads in your area, as well as reducing costs by targeting less competitive but more specific keywords.
For example, if you are a lawyer that only offers law services in Toronto, then it will be more effective to target a keyword such as ‘auto-accident lawyer in Toronto’ than a more general keyword such as ‘auto-accident lawyer’. This will lead to more qualified leads and avoid being contacted by unqualified leads.
Another method of local SEO is to create business profiles on different directories such as Google My Business (GMB) listings where you can show information such as the name, address, phone number, reviews, and photos of your business. The more complete and accurate your GMB listing is the higher the chance your law firm’s rankings will increase on Google Maps.
Make sure that there are no discrepancies between the information on your website and your GMB listing as Google’s local search algorithm takes into account the accuracy of business data when deciding which listing to show on Google Maps.
content marketing for lawyers
There is no point in ranking high in the search results if your visitors click off immediately due to irrelevant content. This is why it is important to have engaging, SEO-friendly content if you want to drive traffic to your website. This means that you will need to optimize each piece of content for specific targeted keywords that you want to rank for on the SERP and make sure that you are delivering value and answering the audience’s questions with your content.
Some ways to optimize your content include: using targeted keywords in your title, using headings to structure your post, include targeted keywords throughout the content where it is relevant, include high-quality images to support what you are writing, and using internal links to link to related contents on your website where it’s relevant.
link building for lawyers
Link Building can be seen as a vote of confidence from other sites that your website is to be trusted and provides value to users. This is extremely important for SEO, as Google is constantly scouring the web in search of trustworthy and high-quality sites to be shown on the first page of the search results.
To effectively build high-quality backlinks to your website, you will need to create valuable contents that other sites would like to share with their audience. Some other methods of gaining backlinks include guest posting, interviews, social media, and directories.

When Will I Notice a Difference With SEO for Lawyers?

SEO for lawyers is something that takes time (3-6 months), but we assure you that the wait is well worth it, as the value that SEO brings will compound over time. SEO is an ongoing process, if you want to maintain a high ranking position on the SERP then you will need to consistently improve upon it. If you are unsure about how to go about it or don’t have the time to learn SEO, hiring a well-trusted SEO agency may be exactly what you need to enhance your online presence.

We Help Lawyers Get Noticed With SEO!

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At 23e2 Digital Marketing, We understand exactly what it takes to help your website stand out in the search results. We have a proven track record of helping our clients with their SEO strategy to enhance their online presence, driving traffic to their website, as well as increasing conversions.
We use advanced SEO tools to perform a thorough audit of your website to identify areas of improvement and make the necessary changes to improve it. We will make sure your website performs effectively with quick load times, clean presentation, high-quality content, and more.
We understand that each business’s needs are different, this is why we believe that effective communication with our clients is key to our success. Our company strives to provide the best services possible by working closely with all our clients and making sure that they are involved in every step of the process.
Ready to get started with SEO for your law firm? At 23e2 Digital Marketing, we offer SEO and website design solutions to help your law firm rank higher in the search results. Contact us today for a free no-obligation consultation! 
Ready to start your new project but have a few questions? We are here to discuss.